Deb's Cafe

We are from out of town and have been working down the road from Deb's for about a week. We come here every night after work to get a good home cooked meal. Very small town feel to the restaurant with Deb greeting everyone who comes in by name and chatting with them in between cooking up great meals. I always get the fettucini with home cooked rolls. The pasta is well cooked and the sauce is made from scratch for each batch. Her rolls are insanely good. I tried the milkshakes, and if you don't mind gaining 10 pounds, they're delicious. The pies are great too. My dad usually gets the healthier options like lean beef patties and steaks...also very good. Clam chowder on Friday's is pretty awesome too.

Overall no complaints whatsoever. For a small town restaurant (the only one in town I think) it's great. Dunno what the other reviewer here is talking about...the food we've have gotten the past 5 nights here has been great in every way. I'd be a bit on the negative side too if I lived in Alsea and only had one restaurant to choose from though.

Eh. Deb's isn't bad, but she isn't by far the greatest.
Her milkshakes are TO DIE FOR (especially the chocolate peanut-butter ones), her pies are okay, but the food usually sucks.
Last time I went and had the vegetable-beef soup, I got this bowl of thin, cheap chicken broth full of canned veggies and little pinches of what looked like sausage meat. I would've preferred canned soup to that muck. I also tried her Alfredo Linguini I think, and it had NO FLAVOR, came out cold, and tasted like glue. In fact, so much like glue, the sticky, thick sauce nearly stuck my teeth together.
And according to the first reviewer, Deb is the sweetest! Maybe the last few times I've been there she's been having a bad day, but she refused service to a few of her costumers and was snappish and cross. She even ignored some tables who obviously needed to be served, and just bustled in and out of the kitchen without any visible purpose.
And I don't usually have a problem with the atmosphere, but Deb's seems like a little dark tavern full of kitschy, thrift-store-looking things. I'm not digging it at all.
BLEH.
-From a citizen of Alsea

Make it a destination!

We stopped here while passing through Alsea (why is it listed here as being in "Southwest Benton"?) on our way to the coast. We were expecting a greasy spoon but found a charming little cafe. Deb herself served us, and did the cooking; it was busy so lunch was a little delayed, but not nearly as long as I would have expected for a woman who managed to cheerfully greet, seat, serve, and cook for several tables all at once. We relaxed and waited for our lunch while enjoying the homemade split pea soup. Lunch proper was a meatloaf sandwich and chicken Caesar salad, both of which were far better than one usually finds.

We were too full for dessert, which was truly a shame, as the pie case held several inviting items. I asked Deb if she made everything herself and she replied in the affirmative. Personally I get very happy when I see an unphotogenic pie in a restaurant case; it means the pie wasn't constructed in a factory somewhere and shipped frozen. "That one got cut before it set up right" she said, indicating a mandarin-orange cream pie she said she'd thought of at 2:30 AM one recent night. I have been fantasizing about that messy, oozy deliciousness ever since. There was also a banana cream pie, some fruit pies and some small things she called mock-pecan hillbillies. As we left we asked about the pies and she informed us she bakes up to 35 pies a week in the summertime. Holy crap, now I am obsessed with pie. We'll be going out of our way to visit Deb's again!